Posts Tagged ‘giving’

My boss will be dropping off one of my charges at a summer camp and not back to the house until fifteen minutes after I would normally be starting, so she said, come in fifteen minutes late.

I’ll take it.

I will take any little squeak of time I can get.

I talked about time a lot with my therapist.

How it is a commodity.

How I have often felt that I don’t have enough of it.

(Love)

(Time)

(Money)

All the scarcity that I have dealt with in my life, how embracing abundance can be challenging and sometimes when I have it I want to spend it all, frivolous and mad, just to have it gone again so I can go back to a place of comfortable discomfort.

That didn’t come up so much, but I can see that pattern there in the background looming and lurking there.

I see you, I say to it, it’s ok, it’s going to be alright, you can buy those shoes.

You can book that trip.

You can have a nice cup of coffee.

You can do for you.

Heck.

You can do for others.

The gift of being able to give my friend baby gifts and food, that felt so wonderful, I love gifting things.

The gift of giving my writing, that can be so astounding for me to share.

So vulnerable.

What I was talking to my therapist about was this thing that happens with me in my group supervision and has happened for me on occasion, ok, more than on occasion, in school, is a distaste for people who waste time, who dilly dally, who are not clear, who can’t make discerning conclusions, who have to be led, who haven’t done the work, who are sloppy.

Messy.

Not put together, and not in the way that sounds, I mean, not concise with their language, thoughts, ideas.

Don’t waste my fucking time.

I don’t have enough of it and you’re not getting to the fucking point fast enough.

GET TO THE MOTHERFUCKING POINT.

BITCHES.

I mean.

Please.

My therapist points out, “sounds like judgement.”

Ugh.

Yes.

I know it’s judgement.

But what she then did was spin it so eloquently, so aptly, so delicate and with such a tactful manner that I got it, I got to work right through it and see that when I am in judgement I am defending some part of myself that I am not happy about.

I don’t want to be messy.

I don’t want to be disorganized.

I don’t want to be scattered.

And I never really am.

I am so super on top of shit it’s a little intense.

I do my work.

I do my work.

I do my work.

And then some.

And it can be a control thing, duh.

So much control, so much safety, comfort in the bound parts of me, comfort in the restricting.

I’ve never been messy about my trauma.

Or traumas.

Or the traumatic things in my life.

There’s a list, look them up elsewhere in my blog, this is not about the list, this is about the fact that it was never ok to be messy and upset about it.

Soldier the fuck on.

Chin up kid.

Clear your fucking plate.

Eat your food.

Don’t cry.

And God forbid don’t act like anything is anything but normal.

Normal.

What the fuck is that?

So.

I squashed it down.

I squashed all the messy and teary and hurt and angry and vengeful parts of me down.

I stuffed it down.

I ate too much food.

I escaped into fantasy.

I escaped into taking care of others.

So much easier to focus on another person’s problems rather than my own.

I smoked it down.

I snorted it down.

I drank it down.

And as I was expressing to my therapist, I realize I really just don’t let myself get messy, vulnerable, or dirty.

Except.

Well.

I do.

In one area.

And we talked about that and I cried a bit and I laughed a lot and I outlined the messy and then I outlined the happy and the love and the feelings and the experiences and it was really good to share.

And she reflected back to me and showed me how brave it was to not eat, drink, smoke, or do lines of cocaine to deal with all that hurt and that I have been doing the work and it really does show and that it’s obvious that things are changing in my life because I am being more vulnerable, less guarded, I’m letting things in.

I’m in my voice.

I haven’t lost it.

I am asking for what I want and saying what is in my heart and it’s glorious.

I am seen.

And it feels just fucking smashing.

So.

Um.

Yeah.

I had a good session today.

And then off to work, busy day, full day, lots of juggling baby and siblings and cooking and laundry and lots of sweet snuggles with the oldest boy who read a book with me about stars.

“Are we really made from stars?” He asked me.

“Yes,” I told him, and kissed the top of his head, “you are a multitude of stars, you shine.”

The one place I for sure thought I would be able to get them, Ace Hardware in the Castro, were out, and the check out person was sad too, “shoot! Those were the ones I was going to get too.”

Ah well.

Next year.

I did find some blue LED lights that will work, they’re going to have to, as they’re currently on the tree.

Yes.

I got my tree.

I just figured what with the lonely Thanksgiving I deserved some cheer.

I even did a tiny bit of Christmas shopping.

A little thing for my mom.

A little something for my friend in Wisconsin.

And my sister’s Christmas present.

I do like getting Christmas presents, cheers me right the fuck up.

I like wrapping presents and sending cards.

I’m a bit old-fashioned.

The running around to find the lights led me to the other shopping and I was grateful for that.

I stocked up on some lip balm that I can only seem to find at one or two places and never quite seem to be in the right neighborhood to procure it.

Today being in Cole Valley I popped over to the Upper Haight, ostensibly to check the hardware store on Haight, but being in the hood, I dropped into Loved to Death and picked up my current favorite lip balm.

My favorite they don’t make any more.

I still so wish they did.

But.

The one that I get is pretty dreamy and delicious—from Tokyo Milk.

I got one pot of Salted Carmel, one of Cherry Bourbon, and one Dark Cocoa.

Oh my, so very good.

Yes.

I taste good when you kiss me.

Heh.

Not that there’s any kissing on the menu, I’ve been so isolated these past few days I haven’t had a chance to get out there, plus, well, it’s not really sexy to go on a date and like possibly have lice.

I mean.

I needed to make sure I was not lousing up any one’s day.

Pun intended.

If you know what I mean.

Anyway.

So I got those and I picked up a couple of lovely little things for my mom and sister and best girlfriend in Wisconsin when I was in Cole Valley, at Pharmica.

Lovely little store I used to go into all the time when I worked in Cole Valley.

OH!

Shoot.

I know where I should have gone.

Cliff’s Variety on 18th and Castro.

They would have had them.

Oh well.

Like I said, next year.

I did rather enjoy zooming around the city on my scooter though, ha, add another hardwared store to the list, I also checked the hardware store on Divisadero and Fell, I really was all over the place, looking for the magical, mystical, fairy blue lights.

I did finally cave and I bought some regular LED blue lights, unfortunately they are a bit brighter than the other two strings of little blue Christmas lights I have, they are a tiny bit overwhelming.

Ah, nothing’s ever perfect.

It’s good enough though.

It really is.

And my tree is lovely.

It has a nice shape and isn’t too tall or too big for my little studio space, but it is bigger than the one I had last year, which was a gift from the man I was hanging out with at the time.

Irony?

He never saw the tree in my house.

That whole month we were pretty estranged, even with the plans to go to Paris.

I was emptying out my Facebook messages yesterday and discovered a cache of messages between the two of us.

Fuck.

That needs to get deleted.

Don’t read them.

Don’t read.

Don’t.

I , um, I started to read a few, then noticed something.

He had finally taken down the photograph I took of him on Christmas Day in front of the Temple Metro station stop in Paris that he was using for his profile picture.

So.

Yes.

Ugh.

I trolled his Facebook page for a moment.

Then.

I went back and deleted every message.

And I did not read them all, no, just the first couple, it was enough and I didn’t need to be feeling anguished, but what I did find, which was good and soft and tender and a tiny bit vulnerable, was that I hoped only for the best for him, that I wished him love and joy and that I was ok.

The reality is I learned a lot from the relationship, even if it some of that learning was painful, I grew like gangbusters.

Pain.

Great fertilizer for spiritual growth.

I mean, like Miracle Gro on steroids.

So.

Happy to be taking care of myself and be out in the world and though it didn’t go how I had hoped, when does it ever? I did have a good day, I got to a yoga class, met with a lady and did the deal, and I got my Christmas tree.